Glass sheets or plates are used in the construction of a wide variety of items including doors, windows, furniture, mirrors and insulating glass units. Typically, a glass sheet or plate is mounted using an adhesive and/or a sealant. For an adhesive and/or a sealant to properly adhere to a glass sheet or plate, the glass sheet or plate must be clean. As a result, glass sheet washing machines have been developed.
Known glass sheet washing machines include a top row of brush rollers spaced apart from a bottom row of brush rollers. Sprayers spray a washing or rinsing liquid on each brush roller. A conveyor includes drive rollers positioned adjacent to brush rollers of each row. The glass sheets are passed through the conveyor with one large face up and one large face down. The top row of brush rollers acts on one large face of the glass and the bottom row acts on the other large face. Fluid reservoirs or containers are positioned below the conveyor and the brush rollers. Washing or rinsing fluid is pumped from the fluid reservoirs to the spray nozzles. Excess washing or rising sprayed onto the brush rollers re-enters the reservoir under the force of gravity to recycle the liquid.
It is common for glass sheets or plates being washed to break. When the glass sheet or plate breaks, broken pieces of glass fall into the fluid reservoirs. Typically, the operator of the glass washing machine will wait until the end of a production shift to remove the broken pieces of glass from the fluid reservoirs, so production is not interrupted. Presently, removal of the broken pieces of glass from the reservoirs is a difficult, time consuming, manual operation. The operator slides the reservoirs out from under the glass washing machine and “scoops” the broken pieces of glass out of the reservoirs with a shovel or net. A tray or pan can also be placed above the reservoirs to collect the broken glass. This requires dedicated floor space around the machine to be able to remove the trays.
What is needed is a system for inhibiting pieces of a broken sheet or plate of glass from falling into fluid reservoirs and easily removing the broken pieces from the glass washing machine.